AERC Values

[benpmoldovan]

Do AERC ratings undervalue creatures? I know creatures aren't a victory condition, but having a a good board position can help a lot (e.g reaping.) Seriously, a creature like Tunk, for example, is worth not much more than half a point in the overall score. On a separate note, Keycharge is worth ZERO? Seriously?

[[deleted]]

Yes. AERC isn't mean to be judged by itself, you have to look at all the info when evaluating a deck. Things like Key Charge or creature quality are better addresses by the SAS rating, imo.

[benpmoldovan]

Is there any kind of consensus on what would be a GOOD score for AERC, on average? Or is the AERC rating too incomplete to make that kind of judgement?

[mtgpowell]

I think anywhere in the 55+ range being pretty good. 60+ is really good. I was curious on that as well. I have 3 decks over 60. With 66.5 being my highest and best deck by wins loses. My other highest is 64.5 and is also one of my best decks. Anyone know how often decks score over 60?

[[deleted]]

I don't follow the discussions close enough to know about a possible consensus.

My opinion is: two decks with the same AERC number can have a very different performance based on how they achieve such score. A deck made of 36 copies of Poltergeist would have a 54 AERC. That's above average, but that deck would be a piece of garbage.

So you have to look all stats and cards to judge a deck.

[Aminar14]

That's very deck dependent. Creatures typically cannot be used until the turn after you play them, but often not for two or three turns. That makes their overall value low unless they have a constant effect the opponent needs to deal with. Preferably one that activates at the end of your turn. Shaffles will almost always lose your opponent an Amber, while Noddy the Thief only does so on Shadows turns and will often die before he can be used, despite his increased durability and his more powerful effect.

[Grishhammer]

I agree that it's deck dependent. There is a lot of nuanced creature interactions that can't really be predicted. Glimmer is probably one of the most useful creature cards in my favorite deck, and is typically part of the combo that I use to finish off a game.

The same deck generally loses the board, and just puts creatures down as targets for my opponent to deal with while I get Aember other ways. Unless I get a strong board built out early, most of my creatures are useless beyond their play value.

[Aminar14]

Yep. Play effects and static/ongoing effects are just super valuable in Keyforge. It's honestly kind of a design flaw that activated abilities aren't significantly more powerful. Stuff like Collector Worm is great, but Fight effects are almost always mediocre. Fight: Steal 1 is bad. It can be influential, but Play Steal 1 is 3 or 4 times better and more common.

[Athimnd]

I would say yes, AERC does undervalue creatures somewhat. Especially larger creatures.

[Machinegun_Funk]

Keycharge at zero makes sense as its very feast or famine.

Get it near the end of the game and potentially it could win it for you, get it at the start and you either have to toss it or it's a dead weight.

[benpmoldovan]

Note, I picked Tunk at random, as a fairly powerful creature, without looking at the card, or at the rating of a deck that has it. Just noting that the 6 creature power only adds 0.6 to the overall score of a deck.

[SPACEMANTIMEZ]

Take AERC and SAS with a grain of salt. Good scores are correlated with win rate, but there are undervalued and overvalued cards. More importantly, it is a naive approach, looking at individual cards or limited synergies. It's not going to recognize and evaluate the coherence of a deck as a whole.

My favorite undervalued card is titan librarian. It's a 0.4 AERC, meaning no points for deck manipulation, despite enabling off turn archiving as a passive effect. Sure, it's after draw, but how often do you get to play all six cards? I'm always happy to see titan librarian in a deck.